We sample (and soil) a few new cargo vans and find that none of them offers CB radios.

We didn’t drive three full-size modern vans 430 miles just to gain admittance to the 43rd annual Van Nationals. We also drove them there (with a dorm room’s worth of furniture from IKEA) so we’d have a place to sleep away our drunkenness.

Oh, right, and also to perform a comparison test of the newest big boys. After what seemed like a century of incremental improvements to the old-school American vans, our market is now awash with new European-derived big boxes, as well as little-sibling versions. We chose three of the new plus-size van-guard: the Mercedes-Benz Sprinter (now in its second generation here in the U.S.), the new-to-America Ford Transit, and a curious-looking thing called the Ram ProMaster. For the sake of intensified Euro-ness, we chose turbo-diesel engines as the exclusive power source.

This choice effectively knocked Nissan’s NV2500 out of our test, since the company offers only gasoline V-6s and V-8s in its big hauler. Chevrolet has dropped its light-duty full-size Express van because it was dragging down the company’s fuel-economy average. Heavy-duty versions are still available, but the Express was deemed too out of step with the modern vans to include anyway.

We specified windowless cargo versions of each entrant because they seemed somehow more in step with the custom vans we expected to encounter at the Nationals. Also, we weren’t running a shuttle service, and we didn’t want people looking through the windows at us as we snored. And then the Ford showed up with windows anyway. We chose low-roof models to diminish the commercial-van look (fat chance!), and no dualies or four-wheel-drive or super-extended models were allowed. The idea was to make them, as much as possible, candidates for modern van customizers. Not that any of the vanners seemed to differentiate much between them. But we did.

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The Ram ProMaster, a Fiat Ducato with ram-head logos, is a detestable, shovel-faced thing that appears to have been cobbled together from spare parts. Too harsh? No, not really. The ProMaster itself is an insult. It is the only vehicle in any comparison test in memory to receive zero points in a subjective category from one of our ­voters. That would be for its dreadful single-clutch automated-manual transmission. The other voters each gave it one mercy point. Pull out onto a busy road and the vehicle comes to a near stop as the transmission pauses to find the next gear. It’s not just annoying, causing your head to bob fore and aft with every shift, it’s scary. The steering system is loose and numb and connected to a steering wheel that feels only a few degrees from a horizontal orientation. It’s better than the steering in an ex-military Hummer H1 or a Mercedes-Benz G-class, but worse than everything else.

Its 3.0-liter inline-four turbo-diesel makes more power than the Mercedes’ smaller-displacement four, but the ProMaster returns the slowest acceleration in the test by two seconds to 60 mph. This despite being the shortest and lightest of the vans. It also takes the longest distance to stop from 70 mph. It was the loudest van, it was judged to have the worst ride, and its handling properties were bottom rung.

Oh, and judging by the contorted position that Fiat/Ram forces the ProMaster’s driver into, the company must really hate plumbers and delivery drivers. Why? We don’t know.

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We probably should have specified the longer-wheelbase version, which would have brought it closer to other competitors in terms of length. But the problems that ail the ProMaster will not be solved by more ProMaster.

Despite a substantial rework for the 2014 model year, the Sprinter comes into this comparison test as the grand old man. It was the Sprinter that introduced the new crop of European vans to America, first as a Freightliner-badged model in 2001, then as a Dodge in ’03, and finally as a Mercedes in ’09. It was something of a revelation when it first came here and remains an excellent vehicle today. Our example, with the smaller of the two available diesel engines, came with an optional bulkhead ($252) between the cavernous cargo area and the cockpit. It was the only vehicle here fitted with one, so take the interior sound-level readings with a grain of salt. Even without the bulkhead, the Sprinter’s seats are a far better place to pass the time than the ProMaster’s.

For one, the Sprinter doesn’t force its driver and passenger to basically stand up while driving. Its seating position is high, of course, but it’s comfortable and the steering wheel is within easy reach. The ergonomics are not nearly as haphazard as those of the Ram, either. And the stereo actually sounds surprisingly decent. It’s the steering, though, that really shocks.

Somehow, Mercedes must have accidentally bolted in the steering from a nicely tuned sedan. Strike that—the steering in the Sprinter is actually better and offers more feel than virtually any current Mercedes sedan. Does that matter in a cargo van? Yes it does, if you’re the one who has to drive it all day.

The 2.1-liter four-cylinder turbo-diesel makes the least amount of power and torque in this test, but with the help of a smooth-shifting seven-speed automatic, the Benz posted a reasonable 11.4-second zero-to-60-mph time. The Sprinter’s governed top speed of 83 mph seems like a prudent limit for such a big thing, even if it’s lower than the others. But on the open expressway, the Sprinter is stable and comfortable enough to justify more speed. The only real disappointment in the Mercedes is an overly stiff ride, but it doesn’t win because it has finally met a tougher competitor.

We had to talk Ford into providing a diesel-powered Transit. The company preferred to send one with a gas-swilling twin-turbo V-6, which would have clobbered the other vans with power. Alas, Ford had nothing to worry about. Its 3.2-liter inline-five still produces more power and torque than the others, motivating the Transit to the quickest acceleration times while returning near-identical fuel economy (22 mpg, in mostly highway driving).

And that’s for a beast that carries an additional 408 pounds compared with the next-heaviest van, the Sprinter. We deemed its interstellar-cargo-shuttle styling to be our favorite, as were its ride quality and handling. With its easy step-in height, relative immunity to side winds, strong brakes, and generally big-car demeanor, the Transit feels like an extra-large Ford Flex. That’s a good thing in our book. We’d still make our sweet custom van out of a ’60s Dodge A100, but the Transit surely drives a hell of a lot better. And it certainly carries more beer.